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20 Kilomètres de Paris

road running event in Paris, France

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ212865
Source-derived summary

The 20 Kilomètres de Paris (Paris 20 km) is an annual road running competition over 20 kilometres which takes place on the streets of Paris, France in October. First held in 1979, the race attracts top level international competitors and holds IAAF Silver Label Road Race status.

The competition was the idea of Michel Jazy, a French runner who was an Olympic medallist and two-time European Champion. The first edition was held through a joint effort by the Council of Paris and ASCAIR (the French Airforce's body for sport). The race has been organised under the auspices of ASCAIR since then.

The course for the competition has a double looped, figure 8 style. The start point of the race is in the Trocadéro near the Eiffel Tower and runners then cross the River Seine over the Pont d'Iéna. It heads in an anti-clockwise loop through Bois de Boulogne before completing a smaller, clockwise loop along the banks of the Seine. The finish point is the Musée du quai Branly. The original race distance was 20.3 km, but this was reduced to 20 km in 1981.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “20 Kilomètres de Paris” is road running event in Paris, France. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Kilomètres, Paris and road, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1979, 1981—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1979. For this dossier, Kilomètres, Paris and road is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “road running event in Paris, France” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q212865. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979 and 1981.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “20 Kilomètres de Paris”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 20 Kilomètres de Paris primary sources, 20 Kilomètres de Paris archive and Kilomètres research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “20 Kilomètres de Paris”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 20 Kilomètres de Paris” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.